Mumbai: i-flex Solutions Ltd has announced that its board of directors, at a meeting held on 04 April, 2008 has approved a proposal to rechristen the company as Oracle Financial Services Ltd, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals.

The proposed new name reflects the company's close strategic and operational alignment with its parent, Oracle Corporation, which owns 81 per cent of the company.

Oracle is the leading enterprise software provider and counts the top banks, insurance companies and securities firms amongst its 8,500 financial services customers across 145 countries.

According to i-flex, the new "Oracle Financial Services" brand represents the industry's most comprehensive range of packaged software and services solutions for financial services across banking, capital markets, and insurance-all from Oracle. It also reflects deep domain expertise in the financial services industry coupled with world-class software development and support experience, a unique combination of integrated and best-of-breed business solutions for the industry, and a business process-oriented approach that aligns IT initiatives with business requirements and enables an evolutionary transformation of IT infrastructure.

The new branding strategy demonstrates the synergies of scale, resources, expertise and efficiency across the two organizations. The current management team under CEO and managing director N R K Raman will continue to run the operations of the company.

"The new branding reflects the importance that Oracle attaches to the financial services sector," said Charles Phillips, Oracle's president, and director of i-flex solutions Ltd.

"Oracle Financial Services Ltd will be a focal point for Oracle's investment in innovation and leadership in financial services, and we are delighted to put the power and credibility of the Oracle brand behind this strategic initiative.''

''Our new corporate identity represents a unique combination of the industry-leading solutions portfolio and deep domain expertise of i-flex and the global capability, credibility, scale and technology leadership embodied by the Oracle brand, coming together to deliver comprehensive solutions to financial institutions around the world," said Rajesh Hukku, chairman, i-flex solutions Ltd., and general manager, Oracle Financial Services Global Business Unit.

N R K Raman, CEO and managing director of i-flex solutions Ltd., commented, "The new identity will enable us to better leverage the global reach, infrastructure and brand visibility of Oracle to accelerate our growth. This is an important enabler of our mission to help financial institutions around the world excel through the effective use of information technology."